


Minor Quests

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elf, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Half-Elf!Josh, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 23:40:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10424421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: There was nothing particularly extraordinary that Josh could see at a glance. He had a cut high on one cheek that could have come from any number of things during the skirmish, the edges of it bruise-dark though it wasn’t especially large or nasty. His eyes were the same green as always - just this side of too bright to be natural though that particular oddity was one that most folk were willing to forgive, writing it off as a fault of their memories making him seem somehow more than he really was. His hair was on the shorter side, a dark, rusty ginger - one of the few traits from his mother that had held fast through the elven blood - and it curled over his forehead in places, tufting out in front of his ears like anyone’s might a handful of months out from a proper cut.That was where the illusion fell apart, though. The ears. It was always the ears that gave him away.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I have absolutely no excuse for this fic except that I love Dungeons & Dragons and I wanted to see these idiots interact in a similar high-fantasy setting. Blame this on the Curse of Strahd campaign that I'm currently playing through, and the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide I've been perusing for a few weeks, I guess.
> 
> This is in no way edited. Like, I haven't even really stopped to do a second read-through of it because it's been sitting in my Google Docs so long that I'm sick of looking at it. If there are any glaring errors please let me know. I'll add in translations for any Spanish tomorrow, as it is late, and I am tired, and also exceedingly lazy.
> 
> Only set within D&D canon inasmuch as I reference places on the Faerun map. As far as I know, people aren't generally this bigoted against elves in-game, but whatever. Something something plot device.
> 
> Enjoy, babes!
> 
> (For the record, [half-elf!Josh looks like this.](https://thrillingest.tumblr.com/post/156948857220/sometimes-i-have-bad-brain-days-and-on-bad-brain) )

There were not an abundance of fae along the Sword Coast, which had been no small part of the initial draw that had pulled Joshua Faraday out into the untempered wilds of Faerun so many years ago. Elves tended to prefer heavily wooded areas and though the lands to the north, where the low planes gave way to the cold, jagged peaks at the Spine of the World, were a patchwork of forests, the further you traveled toward Amn the more the world flattened out into long sprawls of knee-high grass, great green seas of gently rolling hills, and small, squat ranges of mountains.

While Amn itself lay a little too close to the massive, unspoiled Forest of Tethir and its hefty fae community for Josh’s comfort, there was plenty of fun to be had in the Empty Lands without setting up shop in the bustling mercantile stronghold on the edge of heavily populated elven territory. Beyond the cities and keeps dotting the coast, there were miles and miles of unpeopled country with enough soft grasses and rocky overhangs to provide all the shelter a man could want. Though rains rolled in off of the seas from time to time, the weather was rarely so intemperate as to make camping beneath the open canvas of sky particularly hazardous, and should Josh ever find himself wanting for company there were plenty of farming and mining settlements where a fellow could pick up a day’s labor in exchange for a few pieces of copper or a hot meal, try his luck at a hand of cards or dice in the evening. Besides, in an area so heavily reliant on commercial water trade, the locals were more than familiar enough with the salty old dogs that occasionally ventured in from the Sea of Swords not to look twice at a man with a sailor’s woolen monmouth cap pulled low over his hair, which tended to work in Josh’s favor.

Josh sometimes heard tell of an elf or two wandering through - the occasional small delegation headed southward, seeking out the deeply rooted fae tribes in Tethir for some mysterious business, or some solitary adventurer traveling westward to the coast, angling for passage on a vessel to carry them to Evermeet, the elven island - but they didn’t tend to loiter for which he was eminently grateful. There were any number of different races scattered across the continents and isles, many of which Josh had never encountered in person though they featured extensively in the persistent, lingering stories of yore, subjects living on eternally in the telling and retelling of their exploits. Of all the many creatures mentioned in the fables that the wandering bards carried between the coasts, Josh was hard-pressed to think of one he disliked more than elves.

Nobody liked elves, really, with the exception of the elves themselves. Though humans seemed to be less fond of them than most, the majority of folk that Josh had met - whether strictly human or otherwise - spared little affection for the otherworldly creatures, for the way they always seemed to consider themselves a step removed from the reality that had hopelessly ensnared everybody else. Anyone with enough sense to open their mouth and speak would tell you that high elves were an unpleasant bunch, their egos so swollen with self-importance after their many centuries of life that they rarely viewed humans as anything beyond particularly clever vermin, any race beyond humans lesser still. Wood elves were not much better, in Josh’s experience, though they at least deigned to speak to the humans that passed through their domains from time to time, and were rumored to respect the treatises they’d drawn up with the goblinoid races that inhabited their forests. Drow were particularly nasty, to anyone and everyone without exception, in possession of the same bloated sense of self as the high elves but with none of their respect for the sanctity of life.

A small, shamefaced part of Josh was bitterly aware that his dislike of fae on the whole was personal, tethered more to the instantaneous ease with which they saw the truth of what he was than the holier-than-thou attitudes they inflicted upon the other sentient creatures of the world. Like recognized like, after all, and despite the many measures he’d taken to mask it, there was little Josh could do to alter his bloodline.

While there may have been little love lost between elves and humans, neither party especially cared for the half-blood children born of the occasional ill-advised union between the two. It was a double-edged sword, that kind of muddled lineage, and no matter which direction it shook out, it left the unfortunate inheritors of what should be two cultures planted firmly outside of both. As one of those unlucky few, Josh knew that particular loneliness intimately; knew the way it ate and gnawed at you, dug down deep into your bones and impossible to shake even when you were doing your damnedest to outrun it.

Josh himself held no particular fondness for other half-elves, or the small, isolated pockets of belonging they carved out for themselves in larger communities, but half-elves at least knew better than to overtly acknowledge any of their kin who were less than welcoming of their overtures. Full-blooded elves held no such compunction and rarely bothered to hide their very vocal disdain for their half-breed brethren, though they seldom lifted a hand to physically reinforce their distaste.

Weighing an entire race across the board on their tendency not to understand or empathize with his personal circumstances may not have been especially altruistic, but Josh had never pretended to be concerned with any comfort or well-being beyond his own, particularly where fae were concerned. After all, his father - all rumors and stories, as he’d long since disappeared into the mists by the time Josh was of an age to note his absence - had taught him early on that elves didn't have it in them to care about anything but themselves.

When he was young, he’d had hopes that he might find kinder spirits in the human population, being that he shared half his blood with them, but he’d learned the hard way how naive that hope had been. He’d heard enough vitriolic mutterings, been on the receiving end of too many wild blows in his day to make the mistake of announcing himself in human company anymore, his perceived otherness putting him at risk of alienating the locals at best and inviting violence unto his person at worst.

Thankfully most humans weren’t generally inclined to look beyond a passing glance at the folk around them unless something stood out as especially strange. The strangest thing about Josh by far was his tendency to win at cards, which was a common enough talent not to raise much ire outside of the occasional sore-tempered loser. It was all by design, of course - a small, simple matter of keeping his beard grown out and his ears covered for Josh to pass as yet another faceless wandering traveler.

His misstep this time, he thought darkly from a little stamped down circle in a patch of tall grass a way off the main road, had been falling in with a party of men long enough to grow comfortable, careless.

He poked a long branch he’d found amongst the scrub into the small, merrily crackling fire and tried to remind himself that he had spent any number of nights camping beneath the stars with only his own good humor for company. This night was no different, despite the twist in his stomach when he thought of the men he’d left behind in Triel - one in particular, if he were in the habit of being honest with himself, not that it would do much good with the city so distantly at his back that he could no longer see it. By now, with the sun sunken down into the far-off waves of the sea, its gates would be long shut, the wary villagers huddled together against the dark, any second chances or forgiveness Josh might have tried at grasping for solidly locked away beyond his reach.

He had left his friends all alive, at least, and none of them injured beyond what a passing healing spell could restore, though he’d have liked to lend a little of his own magic to it if he’d had the time. The town was free of the damnable vampire den that had been terrorizing its inhabitants, too, though it had been a somewhat narrower victory than Josh would have preferred.

They’d cornered the whole brood in an empty cabin on the edge of town, and nobody had expected that the vampires’ infernal charms would work so swiftly to incapacitate nearly their entire crew. It had been equally surprising that the fae blood Josh carried had acted as a boon for once, kept his head clear while all the rest of his compatriots fell under the monsters’ thrall one by one.

He thought of the terrible vacancy in Vasquez’s eyes, hooded and hazy, blinking dopily and lowering his shortswords while he bared his throat to one of the pale creatures, its teeth glinting like knives in the dark when it opened its mouth. Luckily, Josh had always been a quick, capable shot, and the sudden whine of a crossbow bolt on top of the horrible shriek as it found its target had been the only lure some of the less mind-addled members of their merry troupe had needed to come back to themselves.

They’d made quick work of the beasts after that, though one of them had taken Josh out a closed window as a last ditch effort to escape. The two of them tumbled  down a slanted stretch of thatch in a shower of splintered wood and glass to the dusty lane below. They rolled to a stop a few feet from the building with Josh’s dagger neatly embedded in the monster’s chest. The beast decayed and withered, flesh bleeding ugly rivers of thick black smoke around the gleaming silver blade. Josh was still gasping shallow little breaths, trying to recover from having the wind knocked out of him, body stinging sore all along one side, when Vasquez had come thundering into the street. He rushed toward Josh and dropped to his knees in the dirt to help him pull himself up. The dark-haired ranger was babbling in his mother tongue, like he tended to do when he was worried, and while Josh was far from fluent he knew enough to tell that Vasquez was unhappy with him, fussing in the sour-tempered way he had.

He’d been in the middle of insisting that he was fine, making half-hearted efforts at swatting Vasquez’s hands away and privately thrilling a little at the tender, careful touches Vasquez had been brushing over him when the man in question had gone instantly still and asked, breathless and confused, “Guero?”

He’d been staring at something just to the left of Josh’s face, brow furrowed and fingers curled, hand hovering in the air between them like he wanted to reach out and touch but wasn’t sure it was safe. Josh had frowned at him and turned to look over his shoulder, wondering whether the vampire wasn’t actually dead - after all, it would hardly be the first time any of them had turned their backs on a creature they'd presumed to have slain to their detriment.

There were a number of Josh’s personal possessions scattered in the street about the corpse, lying cracked and desiccated in a glittering field of broken glass: Ethel, his favorite crossbow, which he’d had in hand, though thankfully unloaded, when he fell; a few of his playing cards, come loose from his vest pocket; his small leather tabac pouch, button undone with half its contents spilled out. He felt it like a knife to his chest when his gaze skipped another few inches to the left to discover his hat lying there in the dirt, a small, sad lump of dusty gray wool in the lane.

He swallowed convulsively and lunged for it on instinct, kicking up small clouds of sand and gravel as he scrambled to his feet and plucked it up. He tugged it on over his head and pulled it low enough to cover the sharp points where he knew his ears stuck up out of his russet curls, wheeling around to find Vasquez still staring at him. That imaginary knife embedded in his chest twisted deep and painful at the way Vasquez didn’t seem to recognize him, all of the warmth gone out of his eyes and replaced by a wary calculation that Josh had only ever seen directed at the enemies they faced in combat.

He stood there, frozen for a long moment, pinned by the weight of Vasquez’s gaze, face burning with shame.

“What - ?” Vasquez breathed, and Josh flinched, ducking his head and licking his dry lips. There were footfalls echoing out through the doorway, Horne’s heavy tread and thin, choked voice spilling out into the lane as he came down off of his battle-high and led the party out into daylight once again.

“Sorry,” Josh murmured, hoarse, and turned away.

He wasn’t sure whether Vasquez had told the others or not, hadn’t lingered to find out. He grabbed Ethel and tucked her back into the holster at his side, stalking toward the inn with a mind to collect the rest of his things and scarper before his party could gather their wits about them and confront him in force. If Vasquez called his name, he hadn’t heard it over the rushing in his ears as he fled, the miserable, aching pound of his heart in his throat.

“Would have come out eventually,” Josh muttered to himself, jabbing furiously at the fire and sending a lick of sparks dancing up into the night. There was the distant, melodic chirping and cooing of all the small and slithering creatures that woke in the twilight, a jarring counterpoint to the memory of pan pipes and lively mandolin that he would likely have been hearing if he’d managed to muster his courage and stay.

He’d paused for a second, back at the inn; made sure that the door was locked behind him and tugged the hat off, turning to stare at himself in the small, framed mirror above the washbasin. There was some distant, pitiful part of him desperate to know what Vasquez had seen, what had made him freeze and recoil like he'd found a viper poised to strike underneath an unassuming pile of old clothes.

There was nothing particularly extraordinary that Josh could see at a glance. He had a cut high on one cheek that could have come from any number of things during the skirmish, the edges of it bruise-dark though it wasn’t especially large or nasty. His eyes were the same green as always - just this side of too bright to be natural though that particular oddity was one that most folk were willing to forgive, writing it off as a fault of their memories making him seem somehow more than he really was. His hair was on the shorter side, a dark, rusty ginger - one of the few traits from his mother that had held fast through the elven blood - and it curled over his forehead in places, tufting out in front of his ears like anyone’s might a handful of months out from a proper cut.

That was where the illusion fell apart, though. The ears. It was always the ears that gave him away.

Josh could counteract the natural grace he possessed with a little clumsy showmanship, could blink or duck his gaze to keep people from paying too much attention to the ethereally saturated hue of his eyes, but aside from covering them there was no way to pass his ears off as anything other than what they were - longer than the average human’s by a solid inch or so, sticking up through his curls in twin points that left no question as to Josh’s ancestry. It had been naive of him to think that he could keep up the charade indefinitely, folly borne of the idealistic hope that he might have finally found a place where he belonged if he could just prove that the shape suited before coming clean about his bloodlines.

There had been countless near-misses during all the months he had traveled with their ragtag group, of course. Despite the fact that it was soft and well-worn, tucking his ears up underneath his hat at all times wasn’t very comfortable in the long-term, nor was his preferred headgear especially secure in the heat of battle. Besides, a fellow had to bathe at least once in awhile, though admittedly none of them had prioritized that particular task as much as they probably ought.

From time to time, when he was drunk and happy, gathered around a table with Vasquez a warm pillar pressed up against his side, the lot of their compatriots laughing uproariously, Josh had thought about owning up to it - yanking his hat off then and there and copping to his origins, but the curious eyes of the townsfolk when they were tucked up in a local tavern, or the whisper of fear in the back of his own mind whenever they were blanketed by the wild sky had always managed to stay his hand.

The truth would have willed out, one way or another, he reminded himself sternly. It always did, in the end. There was little use measuring what-ifs and might-have-beens now that he’d been snared so thoroughly in a web of his own making, now that the shame of his error had driven him alone out into the night.

It was probably better that he had left, Josh reasoned. Folk got funny about non-humans much of the time - excepting the few settlements along the coast that played host to an enormous population of halflings and the occasional industrious dwarf - and even beyond that Josh didn’t imagine any of their travelling party would be of good enough humor to bear with ease that he had been lying to them for nigh on a year. They had secrets, all of them. It would have been foolish to expect otherwise, though most secrets yet unshared between them didn't require quite so much willful obfuscation as Josh’s did.

It was far from the first time that he’d lost his hat during a brawl, though every time before, his fear of being discovered had won out over his desire for the easy intimacy of any of his traveling companions. That it had been Vasquez who so thoroughly and devastatingly distracted him was a finger probing into an already raw wound, but at least it had handily put to rest any fantasies Josh might have been harboring about telling Vasquez the truth; any foolishly soppy hopes he’d had that Vasquez might not mind, might just smile at him and tell him he’d been silly for worrying in that funny language of his. Better to bury whatever gentle seed of warmth had been simmering between them now, before it had wormed into the foundations of his being, rooted deeply enough to break him if he lost it.

He ought to have stopped and swindled some booze before he left, he thought darkly, poking at the fire again. If ever there were a night to get blazingly hammered under the light of the moon, this was it. He curled one arm over his ribs, still sore from his fall, his unwillingness to spend any more of his depleted energy on healing himself, and carefully set the stick to the side, letting his fingers rest on Ethel’s hilt.

There was something moving in the brush, quiet and careful. Josh could see it out of the corner of his eye - a distant figure picking its way cautiously through the dry brambles with familiar grace, cloaked in too many shadows for someone of purely human lineage to pick it out of the darkness. He huffed a bitter little laugh and marveled at the fact that this made twice in one day now that his most shameful secret had come through in his favor. He made a show of sighing and settling, staring into the fire as though it held all of the great secrets of the universe, doing his best to look for all the world like a man lost in thought and totally unaware of the wilderness around him. He had his crossbow drawn the moment the looming shape stepped into range, a twig snapping underfoot.

He scowled furiously into the dark, cheeks going hot when he turned to face the figure head-on, stomach lurching with recognition at the countenance carved out of the low shadows by the gently flickering flames.

“What in the nine hells are _you_ doing here?” Josh spat meanly.

Down the length of his crossbow, Vasquez raised his open palms a little higher and shrugged.

“Looking for you,” he offered, easily, as though he hadn’t been staring at Josh like he was something strange and wild and dangerous a mere handful of hours before. To his credit, he wasn't gawping now, despite the fact that Josh had tucked his hat away into his pack hours ago when he’d made camp, figuring there was no point to wearing it while he was alone.

“Well you found me. Congratulations.” He glared furiously at Vasquez despite his shame-reddened cheeks and held Ethel steady, though she was mostly a bluff. He was fairly certain he couldn’t bring himself to shoot Vasquez; there’d been too many of those soft, fond little smirks flashed his way in the intervening months, pulling up something sweet and hot in Josh’s belly, for him to muster the strength to pull the trigger now. He jerked his chin in the direction Vasquez had come from, where he knew the Trade Way lead back to Triel. “Ain’t got no prize for you, so why don’t you do us both a favor and head on back to town?”

“Guero - ” Vasquez started, taking a step forward and freezing when Josh tensed up, shoulders tight and wary. They stared at one another for a long second before Vasquez sighed and continued, gentle and low, “I’m going to sit down, all right?”

When Josh narrowed his eyes but didn't respond, Vasquez raised his hands a little higher still, taking another slow stride into the swimming circle of light. He was all soft black leather and gauzy white silk, the long, dark line of him dotted with star bright silver buttons, glittering with every sleek, feline movement. Despite the rage lancing sharp across Josh’s shoulders and the sick writhe in his stomach, he felt something hot unfurl behind his ribs at the sight. Vasquez wasn’t carrying his shortswords, nor did he appear to have his bow strapped to his back. There was a chance he had a dagger tucked into his boot, but when it came right down to it Josh knew he was the better of the two of them at hand-to-hand; just barely, but it might be enough to tip the scales in his favor if Vasquez had wandered out here into the dark to visit some violent retribution unto Josh’s person.

The man in question folded himself slowly into a seated position about two feet away, gaze on Josh the whole while. It made him feel hunted, pursued, backed into a corner like a wild hare chased by affable barn dogs, all of his instincts clamoring at him that even the friendliest of hounds could still bite. He huffed an exasperated sigh and angled his crossbow at the ground.

“I don’t recall giving you permission to sit,” he muttered mulishly. Vasquez shrugged, offered one of those charming, hopeful little smirks that made Josh's heart twinge.

“I didn’t think you would give it to me,” he admitted gently, “so I decided to take the gamble. You going to make me get back up?”

Josh studied him for a long moment, wary and confused. He had no idea why Vasquez might have followed him out into the wilds. People didn't do that sort of thing, not in Josh's experience. He’d tried his hand at long-term companionship before now and it was always the same - when the truth bore out, he was shifted and slotted into the role of liar at best, and treacherous half-breed at worst. He didn't know what motivation might have driven Vasquez out of Triel and onto his path, beyond perhaps a desire to carry on their confrontation from earlier. Unfortunately for Vasquez, that was a conversation that Josh had been party to too many times before, and he had no intentions of going through the whole song and dance with the man beside him, if he had any say in the matter.

Still, it was Vasquez sitting here in front of him, asking to stay, and despite his misgivings about the whole situation Josh wasn't going to send him back out into the dark without any substantial weapons on his person. Besides, he’d never been especially strong-willed when it came to denying Vasquez’s desires, small and inconsequential as they may seem.

“Not right yet,” he replied quietly.

Vasquez’s smirk warmed a little, posture relaxing somewhat. He tilted his head to where Josh still had his crossbow in hand.

“You mind putting that away?”

Josh only hesitated for a moment, but it was long enough to chase some of that fond hopefulness out of Vasquez’s face, a wounded edge of sadness creeping into his dark eyes.

“I’m not here to hurt you, guero,” he assured softly, thin like it pained him to have to put voice to the words.

“What _are_ you here for?” Josh retorted instantly, fighting the urge to reach over and dig his hat out of his pack, cover up the evidence of the very deception that had lit a fire under Josh’s bootheels in the first place. No need to draw attention to it when he and Vasquez were both pretending so valiantly that it wasn't clearly visible, heavy in the air between them. “I don't imagine we have much to talk about.”

Vasquez arched a disbelieving eyebrow at him.

“You saved my life,” he said slowly. “You saved _all_ our lives, the whole town, guero. You think that doesn't merit a little bit of conversation? Celebration, maybe?”

Josh managed not to flinch at the familiar nickname but it was a near thing. He scowled and tucked Ethel up, slipped her back into the holster at his hip.

“Probably better off going back to Triel if you want a party,” he said brusquely, carefully not looking Vasquez in the eye. “Ain't got any booze and wouldn't share it if I did.”

Vasquez huffed a laugh and rustled around his vest for a moment.

“Lucky for you, I brought my own,” he said easily, wagging a small glass bottle in his hand, the liquid inside glinting amber as it sloshed back and forth in the orange glow of the fire. “And I could probably be persuaded to share.”

When Josh looked up at him, he was grinning that boyish grin, bottle of backwater swill held out like a peace offering, eyes soft and fond in a way that Josh didn’t understand. It set his teeth on edge, made that suspicious mistrust in his belly writhe and boil, anger bubbling up his throat too hot to swallow down.

“What the hell do you _want?_ ” he snapped, halfway to desperate and hackles still tingling with fear. “You didn’t come out here to - to make nice with me! Not now - ” He hesitated, tongue catching on the words.

 _Not now that you see me,_ really _see me. Not now you know what I am._

He shook his head, hunching his shoulders and deflating a little, glancing guiltily over to where Vasquez looked a bit like someone had slapped him, and muttered, “If this is your pity, you can pack it on up and take it back to town. I don't want it, ain't got any use for it.”

Vasquez ducked his gaze away, frowning and shaking his head.

“It’s not pity, guero,” he said, pulling the little stopper from the bottle and staring at it thoughtfully for a long second. He knocked a sip back and then turned and offered it to Josh again. There was something steely in his gaze, the line of his shoulders, a ringing sincerity to his tone that made Josh feel strange, all his body humming with something he refused to identify as hope.

Josh frowned down at the bottle, reaching hesitantly to take it, careful not to let their fingers brush because he didn't think he could keep his distance with the weight of that temptation on him, with Vasquez looking at him like there wasn't anything strange or odd or other about him. He took a long pull off of the rotgut that Vasquez had provided, savoring the gentle burn and acrid tang.

“What is it, then?” He pressed, voice quiet as he handed the bottle back. He was tired, and sore, and he didn't have the patience to play whatever careful game Vasquez was trying for. He’d been steeling himself all night to pass the hours alone for the first time in months, not to fend off Vasquez’s limpid gaze and his gentle, affectionate overtures. He didn't know how long he had it in him to resist, right now. “Why’d you come all the way out here, Vas?”

When Vasquez reached out to take the bottle, he curled his fingers over Josh’s, sighing through his nose, brow furrowed over his dark, intent gaze.

“I wanted to apologize.” He ran his thumb across Josh’s knuckles and Josh’s stomach flipped and tumbled over itself at the sensation. “You surprised me.” He tilted a tiny grin at Josh and added, self-deprecating, “You know I’m not very good with surprises.”

Josh couldn't help but smirk at that, biting back a laugh. He'd seen Vasquez nearly lop many an unfortunate man’s arm off with those blades of his when they came up behind him too swift or too silent, though in Vasquez’s defense, he was a difficult man to sneak up on and it was the sort of thing that rarely happened by accident. Hell, Josh had nearly taken a shortsword to the stomach any number of times himself, catching Vasquez off-guard when he wasn't expending enough effort to make noise, to give up his position with a distinctly human lack of finesse. He swallowed and cleared his throat a little.

“Bit of an understatement,” he agreed, and Vasquez rolled his eyes, grinning soft and fond. His fingers were warm and gentle where they were curved over top of Josh’s. He pressed his lips together for a second, peering thoughtfully at their joined hands around the bottle.

“Joshua, I’m sorry,” he said, voice low and rough. “I wasn’t expecting it, and I reacted poorly.” He paused for a second, frowning down at the dirt and squeezing Josh’s hand absently, like he wasn't even aware he was doing it. “It doesn't change anything. I still want you at my back, guero.”

Josh swallowed around the tight knot that had wound itself up in his throat.

“That ain’t - ” he started. He shook his head, licked his lips and tried again. “You don't gotta say that.”

Vasquez turned to look at him, the furrow on his brow digging in deeper as he cast a confused gaze in Josh’s direction.

“I don’t have to - ” he echoed slowly, shaking his head and huffing a small, disbelieving laugh. “Guerito, I’m not just saying things to hear myself talk.” His eyes glittered dark, sincere and fond in the gentle waves of light lapping over his face. He was very warm, and very close. “It's the truth. You’re my _partner_.”

The word was heavy and sincere, dropping into Josh’s stomach like a lead weight and making his chest tighten painfully. He swallowed around the sudden, miserable ache in his throat and tore his gaze away, tugging a little until Vasquez loosed his grip on Josh’s fingers, forced to take the bottle so that it didn't fall to the grass between them.

“If I'm remembering right you’ve got five other suitable fellows to choose from a few hours down the road, if that's what you're in the market for.” He picked up the stick and dug it into the fire again, desperate for something to do with his hands that wasn't reaching across the minimal distance toward Vasquez again or digging his hat out to cover up the truth of his history. “Hardly going to miss one, I bet.”

“Don't you want to come back?”

Josh didn't need to see Vasquez’s face to know that he was frowning. The hurt in his tone was clear, and Josh hunched his shoulders against it, scowling and poking at the fire a little meaner.

“Ain’t rightly up to me, is it?” He asked, clipped and sharp. “I’m only as welcome as you lot decide I am. My preferences on the matter don't really weigh in.”

“I already told you I want you there, guero,” Vasquez said gently. Josh barked a bitter sliver of a laugh.

“I don't figure one vote in my favor will hold up to five against it,” he muttered darkly. He dug at the fire again and it flickered and spit, charred end of the long stick cutting a trail of sparks across the ink-dark sky.

Vasquez was quiet for a long, thoughtful beat. Josh could feel the considering weight of his gaze though he couldn't quite bring himself to turn his head and meet it, waiting for the moment that Vasquez realized he was right, that it wasn't worth the effort just to drag Josh back to a place he wasn't wanted, and made his awkward, belated excuses to go.

When he finally broke the silence, the question he murmured into the small space between them wasn't at all what Josh had been expecting.

“Why would any man in our party vote against you, guerito?”

It was muted, and edged with pain, and it caught Josh off-guard, knocking him off balance so badly that he couldn't help but turn and stare at Vasquez, bewildered. Vasquez’s face was dark but not angry, brow deeply furrowed over his curious gaze and displeased frown. Josh waved his free hand vaguely in the direction of his head, snapping archly, “Why do you think?”

Vasquez’s frown pulled tighter, pinning sharp shadows to the edges of his mouth. He set the bottle of booze behind him, half-twisting to settle it firmly in the tall rushes at the very edge of the hastily trodden-down circle that delineated Josh’s campsite, where the thick carpet of grass wouldn't let it topple and spill. When he turned back around, the motion brought him close enough that their knees were pressed together, and it took every remaining ounce of Josh’s rapidly dwindling willpower not to flinch away from the contact, to maintain the illusion that he was as easily unbothered as ever.

“You’ve proven yourself many times over, just as we all have,” Vasquez said carefully. “You’ve saved all of our lives at least once apiece.”

Josh snorted, bitter, and shook his head.

“Hardly what I’d call an accomplishment, in that company,” he snapped. “I was just trying to keep the scorecard evenly balanced.”

“Still worthy of gratitude, of respect,” Vasquez parried gently. Josh smirked at him, hard-edged and terrible.

“Well ain’t you pretty in those rosy spectacles of yours?” He asked meanly. He let the mirth drop away on the tail end of his question, turned his gaze back on the fire as he muttered, “Gratitude and respect don’t always go hand in hand, amigo. Plenty of folk’d be grateful to a wolf that saved them from a bear. Don’t mean they’d invite him in to live amongst the sheep.”

“Are we sheep?” Vasquez asked jovially. Josh snuck a glance at him and was surprised to find real humor sparkling in that dark gaze. Vasquez scratched absently at the scruff on his jaw and made a ‘well, what do you know’ expression, lifting his shoulders in a jaunty little shrug. “I was under the impression we were _all_ wolves, in our own ways.” The grin he cut at Josh through the gloom was a sharp chip of bone-white that summoned heat like a writhing demon in Josh’s belly. “Don’t know about the rest, but I certainly have plenty of teeth.”

That sparking tongue of want flipped and twisted over itself, souring and corroding into something fierce and angry, ratcheting tight and painful for a second before it snapped.

“Glad to see it’s all quips and jokes for you,” Josh snarled, glowering viciously at Vasquez, bitter satisfaction coursing through him at the way Vasquez’s expression hardened, easy amiability driven out by the whip-crack ferocity of his tone. He turned away again, careful to maneuver himself so that he and Vasquez were no longer touching, and spat meanly, “You know what? I changed my mind. I think I _do_ want you to get back up.”

“Guero - ” Vasquez started to say, but Josh cut him off with a small, curt shake of his head.

“No, I get it,” he drawled, voice drenched with venom. His whole body ached like a raw wound, and Vasquez being there was only making it worse. He would leave eventually. They always did. Josh might as well give him a little push in the right direction. “It’s all fun from where you’re sitting. Funny fella with funny ears bein’ funny about gettin’ caught out.” His heart rattled miserably against his ribs and Josh hunched forward against the sudden, sharp pain. “Well we’ve had our laughs, darlin’, so you can leave.”

The last word was a twisted snarl, scraping jagged past his teeth and cutting the easy camaraderie in the air like a broadsword, clefting it neatly in twain and leaving the two of them mired in a moment of loud, taut silence, settled so heavy in the air that it was difficult to breathe, thick and glutinous like swamp water. Josh could feel Vasquez’s gaze on him, pinning him so neatly that he didn't dare risk moving for fear that he would come apart underneath it. After a long, fraught moment, all the cacophonous creatures of the woods gone strangely still and silent, Vasquez took a long, shaky breath and asked gruffly, “Will you at least let me clean you up before I go?”

“I can heal myself just fine,” Josh snapped. Vasquez made a little clicking noise with his tongue, muttered something unkind about Josh’s stubbornness that Josh could only make out a word or two of. After a long second,Vasquez sighed - a small, broken, strangely defeated sound.

“Please, guero?” he asked, and it was wrung out and exhausted in ways that Josh had only ever heard when Vasquez was recovering from some hideous injury or another, laid up in bed or limping along behind the party while Josh did his level best to distract him and make him laugh. “I’ll leave after, if you want me to. I swear.”

For a second, Josh considered giving in, letting Vasquez lay his hands on him, letting him soothe the frigid curl of pain under Josh’s skin with the familiar warmth of his healing magics. If he did, though, he knew he would wind up following Vasquez’s tender affection and soft, fond smiles all the way back to Triel, hypnotized like a viper on the end of a dancing flute, and as much as he wanted to believe otherwise there was no way to know with certainty if Vasquez’s fondness for Josh would be enough to save him once they got there.

“I want you to leave _now,_ ” Josh snarled insistently, though there was a waver to his voice that he didn't care to acknowledge.

Vasquez’s eyes went sharp and hard, shoulders tightening under that defeated edge. He made no moves to rise, simply curled his palms into fists against his knees and demanded darkly, “And if I don’t?”

Josh glowered, chin jutting out mutinously as he ground his teeth. He didn't voice a response, but that was apparently enough of an answer for Vasquez to extrapolate something from it, because he huffed a tiny, bitter laugh and shook his head in a short, sharp jerk.

“Why are you doing this, guero?” He asked, tone hot with frustration and heavy with pain. It had always been a gift of Vasquez’s - sussing out all the gaps in Josh’s metaphorical armor that he couldn't quite manage to hide, worrying at them unforgivingly with that tender concern that cut deeper than any blade had ever managed. “Do you even know?”

“‘course I know,” Josh scoffed.

“Oh really?” Vasquez looked deeply unimpressed, eyebrow arched high and disbelieving over his searching gaze.

_“Really.”_

“Tell me then,” Vasquez goaded. His voice was low, not quite a whisper, but barely loud enough to carry across the handful of inches between them. “Why are you doing this, guero? Why are you running away from your friends? From the people who care about you?”

 _Why are you running from me?_ he didn't ask, but Josh heard it in the wounded strain of his voice all the same.

“I ain't running,” he muttered. “I'm making a - a tactical retreat.”

Vasquez flat out snorted at that.

“Dragonshit,” he said flatly. “You're running.”

“Fine!” That wicked, howling anger that had been raging inside Josh all night twisted itself around the shrieking pain from so many hours ago, seeing Vasquez look at him like he was a monster. The knotted mess burst up and out through his limbs as he sprang to his feet, spryly as he could manage with his ribs still bruised. He wheeled around to glare at Vasquez, who was watching him with something inscrutable in his face, brow furrowed deeply and mouth turned down. “So what if I _am_ running? It's apparently the only gods-bedamned thing I’m good at, and it's better’n crawling back into town with my tail tucked, hoping for compassion where I ain't ever found none before!”

“Where will you even go?” Vasquez demanded hotly. “Going to wander the plains all alone?”

“Maybe!” Josh spat back, lip curling meanly. “Maybe I’ll post up somewhere nice and quiet where no fool rangers’ll bother me!”

Vasquez snorted, disbelieving and slightly offended. “Name _one_ place you could go that I couldn't follow, mijito.”

“I don't know!” Josh half-hollered. He felt fevered, furious and ripped along in the boiling current of his rage. “The Wood of Sharp Teeth!”

“The Wood of Sharp Teeth is overrun with gnolls, idiota,” Vasquez said smugly.

“Maybe I _like_ gnolls!” Josh snapped, though he held no particular affinity for the slavering, dog-faced goblins.

“ _Nobody_ likes gnolls,” Vasquez assured in a slightly more reasonable tone, though it was still clipped and brusque. He rose to his feet with a considerably greater measure of grace than Josh, wiping his palms off on his ridiculous black leather pants, the ornate silver buckle at his waist catching the red glow of the flames as he stood, glittering all fire and ice. “If you want to keep running, that's fine, guero.”

Josh tried not to flinch too obviously. He’d known this was coming, had spurred it forward with every vicious, snapping aside he’d been firing like crossbow bolts since Vasquez had appeared out of the shadows and sat down, but still his heart plummeted, sinking into the sick, rolling depths of his stomach like a stone cast into the sea. He turned his gaze down to the flattened grass, eyes stinging at the sudden, visceral ache in his chest while he waited for Vasquez to make his excuses and leave, and stubbornly clenched his jaw. Despite the words pooled like marbles just behind his teeth, he refused to submit himself to the indignity of begging Vasquez to stay.

He was expecting a lot of things as Vasquez shuffled absently in the grass, adjusting his outfit to lie properly after so long spent sprawling in the dirt - colorful invective, cruel allusions to Josh’s origins, thinly veiled promises of violence should their paths ever cross again. What he was _not_ expecting was for Vasquez to sigh and set his shoulders, eyes dark and serious as he said plainly, “I’ll just have to go with you.”

Josh whipped his head up to stare at Vasquez, agape. He worked his mouth a time or two, voice failing him, certain down to his bones that he must have misheard, and only managed to croak a hoarse, “You’ll _what?”_ after comically clearing his throat.

“I’ll go with you,” Vasquez repeated easily, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest and cocking a hip. “You want to run? Fine. I don't like it. I don’t understand it, but I’m not letting you do it alone, either.”

Josh spluttered for a second, searching for words that he kept tripping over and choking on until he managed to spit, “Well you can’t!”

Vasquez cocked his head, a tiny, hard-edged smirk making the shadows at the edges of his mouth go deeper. He really was unbearably handsome. Josh _hated_ him.

“Can't I?” he asked benignly.

“No!” Josh hissed, insistent. “You can't!”

“Why?”

“I - you - because I said so, damn it all!” Josh roared. He reached up to tug at his hair, forgetting his injuries in his frustration until his ribs pulled viciously. He flinched and let out a pained grunt, wrapping his other arm around his waist and manfully resisting the urge to step back when Vasquez surged forward a few inches, alarmed. “You can't just show up after - after - ”

The words caught, tangled into a barbed knot at the back of Josh’s throat, high enough to catch the light of the fire past his teeth but not high enough that he could force them forward, push them out. Vasquez stepped a little closer.

“After I saw you?” he asked, voice soft, and painfully gentle in a way that dug up behind Josh’s aching ribs, sunk straight into his heart.

Josh let his eyes fall closed, swallowed, thick, and licked at his dry lips before breathing out a harsh, hoarse, “Yeah.”

“Guero,” Vasquez said, and there was a careful, testing touch against Josh’s uninjured side. Josh tensed for a second and took a small, shuddering breath. When he relaxed, Vasquez let his palm spread wide, fingers curling over Josh’s flank, hot even through the well-worn buckskin of his vest. “ _Joshua._ I don't care.”

He let his thumb drag down toward the arc of Josh’s hip and then back up again. He was close enough that Josh could feel him even without his eyes open, the warmth coming off of his body so much softer and smoother than the crackling heat of the fire a few feet away, than the chill press of the early spring night against his back.

“Seemed like you cared back in town,” Josh murmured thinly.

Vasquez sighed, but didn't let his hand fall away. When Josh cracked his gaze just enough to sneak a peek at him, Vasquez was looking down toward his toes, frowning and pained, shoulders laden with a heavy weight that Josh recognized as regret.

“I’m sorry, guero,” he said, soft and raw and low. “I didn't - I didn't expect it, but I don't care. Tú prometo.” When he raised his head, his eyes burned with more than just the writhing light off the fire. “I’ll tell you that as many times as I need to for it to sink in.”

“Don’t - ” Josh heard himself say immediately, distant and desperate, voice scraped so raw there was almost no substance to it. He believed Vasquez, was the thing; believed him when he said he hadn’t meant it, that he didn’t care, that he wanted Josh to stick around anyway. That knowledge, that tender promise, almost hurt worse than it would have if Vasquez had spat in his face when he’d found him lying in the dirt. He brought a hand up to Vasquez’s chest, whether to push him further away or reel him in closer, even Josh himself didn't know. All he knew for certain was that they were both of them teetering on the edge of a precipice here, and Josh wasn't sure he would survive to see whatever awaited them at the bottom of that cavernous fall. “Vas, _don’t.”_

“I’m sorry,” Vasquez said, plowing forward with the obstinate lack of grace he only ever employed when he knew he was doing something Josh wouldn't like but was committed to seeing it through anyway. He brought his other hand up between them, trailing his fingers along the bruise-shadowed plane of Josh’s cheek. Josh flinched and shuddered, sucking a sharp breath through his teeth and biting his lip to hold back a sigh. There was an electric spark, a familiar tingle as Vasquez’s magic slipped in crackling embers beneath Josh’s skin where he let his fingertips fall.

Josh made a tiny whimpering sound in the back of his throat that he would undoubtedly find so embarrassing as to to be unbearable once he’d regained a little of the sense of which Vasquez had so thoroughly robbed him. Vasquez started to move again and Josh only lasted for a spare half-second before he let his elbow buckle, gave up on holding Vasquez off. He shut his eyes against the sudden, overwhelming wash of emotion that flooded through him, too gnarled and twisted to sort, especially with Vasquez stepping in so close that Josh could feel the heat of his breath on his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Vasquez said again, letting his thumb drag lightly along the blade of Josh’s cheek while magic bled out through the pads of his fingers. It felt like lightning a bottle, Vasquez’s magic - all brilliant glow and roaring power, trapped up in something so beautiful as to belie the truth of the ferocious strength it contained. “I’m sorry.”

“Please - ” Josh started, only he didn't know what he was asking for, exactly. He felt like he might burst, face gone hot for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being the way that Vasquez curled his broad palm around Josh’s cheek once he’d finishing healing the damage therein. He tried to twist his fingers in Vasquez’s vest but the leather was too thick to gain that kind of purchase. Josh scrabbled at it ineffectively for a second anyway before Vasquez abandoned his grip on Josh’s waist to curl his fingers around Josh's wrist instead.

“It’s okay, guero,” Vasquez murmured, and tugged Josh’s hand up to press a trail of hot kisses along his knuckles. “You’re okay. I’m sorry.”

When Josh opened his eyes again, Vasquez’s head was still bowed low over his hand, curls half-obscuring the inky wash of his lashes where they cast long shadows over his skin.

“Vas,” Josh breathed, and tilted his face a little more firmly into the palm Vasquez still had curved gently around his cheek.

“You don't have to run, guero,” he continued, as though Josh hadn't spoken, breath a silky spill of heat over Josh’s skin. “I didn't tell the others. I _won’t_ tell them, not if you don’t want me to.”

_“Why?”_

Josh had asked the question before he even thought about it, absently letting his fingers curl over Vasquez’s where their hands were joined. Vasquez glanced up at him, seemingly surprised, brow furrowing a bit in vaguely amused confusion.

“It's not mine to tell,” he said easily, as if it were that simple. As if a hundred people Josh had thought he could trust, had _believed_ he could trust hadn't gone flapping their gums to anyone who’d bend an ear after they’d discovered him months and years and lifetimes ago. Vasquez let his gaze go soft, mouth tilting just barely, and offered quietly, “I think you _could_ tell them, though, for what it’s worth. I don't think they would care, either.”

Josh’s stomach lurched, hope and want and fear all miserably snarled together, cold and hot and sour in his gut.

“I - I don't know,” he said, shaking his head. When nothing else was forthcoming, he just sighed and said it again, quieter. “I don't know.”

Vasquez dipped his head again, and this time when he kissed the back of Josh’s hand, he let it linger. That twined mess in Josh’s belly writhed furiously, his face flaring hotter still. This wasn't something he and Vasquez _did_ , though Josh would be a liar of if the highest order if he claimed he’d never thought about it. It was true that they were closer to one another than to the rest of their party; that perhaps they left too little space between them when they sat side by side, let their touches and their gazes hover a little too long, but for all that they’d been toeing that fragile line with vigor, neither of them had quite managed to muster the courage to step across.

 _Until now,_ Josh thought, only mildly hysterical.

“You don't have to decide right this minute, guero,” Vasquez said gently, a tiny smile curling his mouth. He dragged his thumb along Josh’s cheek in a quick, affectionate stroke, and then let his hand drop, tugging gingerly at Josh’s shirt where it was tucked into the waistband of his trousers - practical wool, unlike the ridiculous leather slacks Vasquez wore, which left only the most intimate details to the imagination. “Let me do your ribs?”

Josh spared barely half a thought to the consequences before he sighed, “Fine.”

Vasquez murmured something in his mother tongue that Josh couldn't quite make out, though he suspected from the tone it was some small token of praise. He tugged Josh’s shirt free of his trousers and tucked his fingers up underneath it, brushing a gentle, careful touch against the plane of Josh’s belly.

Josh hissed a breath at the sudden contact, though he’d known it was coming. The pads of Vasquez’s fingers were warm, and soft, giving way to the rough, calloused touch of a swordsman when he pressed gently forward and let his palm sprawl. He loosed his grip on Josh’s fingers with an affectionate little squeeze and slid his other hand up under Josh’s shirt, too, rucking the worn linen up the barest bit, thumbs dragging in short, synchronized patterns across Josh’s skin. A cool whisper of evening breeze ducked under Josh’s shirt and licked gently up along his spine, a perfectly balanced counterpoint to the heat of Vasquez’s hands on him. He shivered before he could help himself, gooseflesh cascading in a prickling wave all the way up to his shoulders.

“All right?” Vasquez asked gently, gaze flicking up from the freshly-bared stripe of skin at Josh’s waist, eyes dark and soft and impossibly fond.

Josh licked his lips and nodded, hazy and slow.

“Fine,” he assured, a little breathlessly.

“Good,” Vasquez said, voice gone low and rough. He tucked Josh’s shirt up a little further, frowning as he uncovered the first creeping blue-black tendrils of bruising along Josh’s side. He let his fingers brush delicately over the damage, face falling further when Josh sucked a pained breath past his teeth. “Guero,” he breathed miserably, horrified, “you walked on this for two hours? With your pack on?”

Josh swallowed, thick, and tried not to shiver. The bruise pulsed hot all along his ribs, and Vasquez’s touch was a blessed burst of icy chill against his fevered skin.

“I was a little preoccupied at the time,” he admitted weakly. “Didn’t rightly notice.”

“Duendecito tan tonto,” Vasquez muttered darkly. He cut a quick, apologetic gaze up at Josh and sighed, “This is going to hurt.”

“Seems a little counterproductive, don’t it?” Josh huffed bleakly, amused despite himself. Vasquez flicked his eyes skyward for a brief second and then looked at Josh again.

“Can I?” he asked, brushing his thumb over the bruising again, gentle and absent. This time, Josh didn’t have to pause to consider.

He inclined his head in a little nod, and Vasquez turned his attention back to the injury, serious and stern-faced, and pressed his fingers into the bruise.

He hadn’t been lying - it hurt like hell. Josh flinched with his whole body, fingers spasming into white-knuckled fists for a moment, teeth grinding furiously while a bone-rending ache sparked like immolating fire all through his side, a stinging flare of sharp white electricity licking at its heels. He felt frozen for an impossible second - stretching on into eternity at the same time that it was over in the blink of an eye - entire body pulled taut while his nerves screamed. Everything shifted and settled and then a wave of delicious warmth crested up in its wake, the wickedly aching pressure along Josh’s side, saturating his ribs, seeping out and away as it washed up through him. He let out a long sigh as Vasquez’s magic chased out every last, lingering little ache and pain, spine gone loose, posture easy and relaxed in a way it hadn’t been since before all the damnable business with the vampires that morning.

“Hell of a party trick,” Josh said breathlessly, and Vasquez laughed.

He was very, very close, and Josh was suddenly, explicitly aware that Vasquez still had his hands on Josh’s bare skin, tucked up underneath the hem of his shirt.

“I’m pretty sure you meant to say, ‘thank you,’ guero,” Vasquez teased.

Josh felt a little dizzy, head spinning like he’d had too much liquor, for all that he hadn’t taken more than a paltry handful of sips out of Vasquez’s mystery bottle. He grinned, and replied in his best ‘aw shucks’ drawl, “Now, darlin’, you ain’t gotta thank me for anything.”

Vasquez snorted unattractively and leaned in close, rolling his eyes, and then they were kissing, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

This close, Vasquez was all sandalwood and liquor tang and well-loved leather. His mouth was hot, and soft, and slick, and when Josh sighed longingly into the kiss Vasquez tilted his head, correcting the angle, and licked his way past Josh’s teeth. Josh grasped at his vest again and mentally swore when he couldn’t get a hold of it, yanking viciously until he’d managed to tug a decent portion of Vasquez’s ridiculous silk blouse free of his trousers, gripping it with white-knuckled fists.

Vasquez moaned and his fingers tightened sweetly where he had one broad palm curled high around Josh’s side. The other, settled low across the plane of Josh’s abdomen, dragged down until Vasquez could hook a finger past the wasitband of Josh’s trousers, sending a heated flare of want sparking up Josh’s spine. The faint tingle of magic still quivering under Josh’s skin faded slowly away as Vasquez dragged his thumb up the rungs of Josh’s ribs and back down again. Everything was soft-edged with the gentle glow off the fire, heat spooling out from beneath Vasquez’s fingers, prickling up through Josh’s belly, his throat, across his cheeks and higher still.

Josh gasped a breath and bit at Vasquez’s lip, and Vasquez took a step forward, catching Josh’s boot with his own. There wasn’t an abundance of space between them, and when Josh stumbled to try and correct for the sudden intrusion, he overbalanced and they went down hard into the buoyant waves of sweet grass ringing the little campsite. Not that Vasquez seemed to mind, as the first thing he did after confirming that Josh hadn’t somehow been injured again in the tumble was to swing his leg over Josh’s hips and nuzzle against the hinge of his jaw.

“Guero,” he breathed, and his voice was ragged and grit-edged and desperate. He slipped his fingers into the curls at the nape of Josh’s neck and tugged gently. “Do you - can I - ”

Josh groped blindly until he managed to hook his fingers over Vasquez’s ridiculously flashy belt and gasped, “Yes. _Yes_ , fuck, do whatever you want.”

Privately, in the back of his mind, whenever Josh had considered the possibility of anything happening between them, he had always imagined it would be at the hideous peak of a fight - both of them riding that ferocious adrenaline high, lashing out viciously until the strange magnetism between them finally caught and reeled them in. This was fierce, and desperate in its way, but every searing kiss that Vasquez dropped to the surface of his skin, every delicately probing touch he ventured past the confines of Josh’s clothes was saturated with a sort of reverent tenderness - soft and sweet and addictive.

Vasquez shuffled Josh’s shirt, his vest up high enough that it was the work of a half a motion for Josh to shrug his way out of both, casting them aside without a thought. Vasquez paused for a moment, staring down at Josh with a daze about him, face flushed and mouth swollen, dark curls a wild halo against the star-pocked sky at his back.

“Gods, you’re beautiful,” Josh breathed before he could stop himself.

Vasquez let his palm rest for a moment against Josh’s chest, warm and wonderful over the steady beat of Josh’s heart, smirk tilting fondly up at the corners.

“You flatter me,” he murmured, teasingly, and leaned in to kiss Josh again.

The world seemed to slow around them, time stretching out, sticky and edged with a soft haze. Everything was a blur of careful, gentle touches, and quiet, hopeful questions, Josh lost to the decadent slide of Vasquez’s mouth against his, the warm, clever twist of Vasquez’s fingers neatly divesting him of his clothes, until he gasped and opened his eyes and discovered that sometime between one breath and the next, Vasquez had shucked his ridiculous costume aside into the long-stemmed sweetgrass, too.

He was all lit up bronze in the drowsily dwindling embers of the fire, edges of him picked out in sharp slivers of moonlight. He settled his weight on top of Josh, hands pressed to the earth on either side of Josh’s shoulders while Josh curled his arms around Vasquez’s trim waist, palm slotting neatly into place at the small of his back like it had been made to fit there.

Vasquez rolled his hips and Josh groaned at the delicious pressure of the motion, at the sweat-slicked slide of their cocks dragging side-by-side. He felt like he was melting - lit up from the inside out by the unspeakable pleasure of having Vasquez over top of him, the whole feline length of him moving in a sinuous wave, stoking that brilliant flame hotter and hotter at every place their skin touched.

“Vas,” Josh breathed, desperate and cresting toward that white-hot peak. “Fuck, Vas.”

“I know, guero,” Vasquez gasped, ducking in for a kiss and biting at Josh’s lip while he was there.

Josh whimpered, and bucked up into Vasquez, tucking his face into the curve of Vasquez’s shoulder and tightening his arms around the narrow taper of Vasquez’s waist. Vasquez made a low, desperate noise in the back of his throat and murmured something unintelligible into Josh’s hair.

“Fuck,” Josh sighed desperately, rocking his hips up once, twice, in little, shallow rolls before pressing his mouth tenderly to the elegant line of Vasquez’s throat and spilling with a groan between their bellies. Vasquez whined over top of him, abandoning his pace and rocking into the slick mess a few times before he followed suit, arms trembling for a few valiant seconds before he collapsed down on top of Josh, panting like he’d just outrun a ravenous horde of bugbears.

Josh wasn’t exactly sure how long they laid there, recovering in each other’s arms, Vasquez sprawled over Josh like lazy barn cat, nuzzling his face against Josh’s throat, his chest, grin curling so smug and self-satisfied that Josh was half-afraid he was about to sprout whiskers.

“You seem mighty pleased with yourself,” he murmured, trailing his hand down the length of Vasquez’s spine and privately thrilling at the way Vasquez shivered and curled in closer.

“Should I not be?” Vasquez asked, lifting himself up just enough to arch an eyebrow at Josh.

“I didn’t say _that_ ,” Josh shrugged, raising an arm up over his head and stretching. When he settled back down into the grass he found Vasquez studying him, head to one side, eyes glittering soft and fond in the silver-tinged dark.

“What?” Josh asked, narrowing his eyes. Vasquez shook his head.

“Did you really think that we would cast you out just because you have silly ears?”

Josh felt his face flush, fingers twitching with the instinctual urge to reach for the nearest passable method by which to cover the offending features. Vasquez’s face instantly softened, and he reached up to curl his palm around Josh’s cheek, leaned in to press a flurry of quick, tender kisses to his jaw, his chin, his nose.

“I like them,” he assured easily, warm against Josh’s mouth. Josh flushed even hotter.

“They are not silly,” he croaked after a long second, fighting the desire to duck his head, to tuck his face away against Vasquez’s chest.

Vasquez grinned at him, eyes gleaming with something so soft and tender that it made Josh’s heart ache to look at.

“They _are_ silly,” he assured, gaze flicking off slightly to the side, as if he needed to check just to be sure. He tilted his head, thoughtful, and let his grin sprawl, the edges soft and warm. “They get red when you’re embarrassed,” he confided, low and teasing, turning his gaze back on Josh’s face and leaning in close. “Did you know that?”

“They do _not,_ ” Josh mumbled, though he could feel the heat in the tips of his ears, valiantly attempting to go as red as his face already was, no doubt.

“They _do_ ,” Vasquez insisted with a small, delighted laugh. “Don’t lie to me when I’m looking right at them, guero.”

“You - they - ” Josh started, but before he could summon up a witty rejoinder Vasquez was carefully lifting a hand, letting it hover in the air just to the side of Josh’s face.

“Can I?” he asked - a quiet echo of the same intimate question he’d asked earlier.

Something knotted and caught in Josh’s throat, a bittersweet ache that made his eyes sting and his ribs twinge while at the same time he felt like his whole body was filled from head to toe with Vasquez’s crackling, electrifying magic. He couldn’t quite manage any words, but he dipped a little nod that seemed to get his message across well enough.

Vasquez started at the hinge of Josh’s jaw, trailing his fingers delicately up around the curved shell of Josh’s ear, meandering lazily up to the heated point at the top, so soft and reverential that it sent a shudder rolling all down Josh’s body. There was a precious, weighted moment of stillness, words curling to life behind Josh’s teeth and poising themselves gleefully at the edge of his tongue.

He bit them back before he could say anything too terribly embarrassing and rolled over, dragging his laughing companion with him so that he had Vasquez pinned in the lush grass, grinning soft and bright and lovely in the watery light of the moon.

He narrowed his eyes, thoughtful and self-satisfied, and smirked knowingly as he asked, “Does this mean you’ll come back to town with me?”

Josh huffed a theatric, long-suffering sigh.  
  
“It means I’ll think about it,” he muttered, before he leaned in, endeavoring to kiss the smug, triumphant smirk right off of Vasquez’s stupid handsome face.

**Author's Note:**

> **Post-Credits Scene:**
> 
> "You _knew?_ " Josh stared, agog, at the assembled faces around the table.
> 
> Billy and Red were placid and stony, as usual, while Sam, Horne, and Goody all seemed to be caught at an uncomfortable midway point between amusement, apology, and empathetic support.
> 
> "You're not exactly subtle, son," Goody offered apologetically, waggling his fingers toward his own head, presumably in reference to Josh's trademark monmouth cap, which he had left off this morning in the interest of disclosing his most closely guarded secret to the remainder of their party.
> 
> "I am _exceedingly_ subtle!" Josh snapped insistently. "Vasquez didn't even know until the other day! After the thing with the vampires!"
> 
> Goody and Sam exchanged a knowing look and Josh glared, narrowing his eyes at them.
> 
>  _"What?"_ he demanded darkly.
> 
> Sam scrubbed thoughtfully at his chin, cutting a quick glance to where Vasquez was seated at Josh's side, and said carefully, "Vasquez, uh, doesn't always pay the most attention to his surroundings when you're nearby."
> 
> "What dragonshit," Josh snorted, leaning back in his seat. He tilted his head at Vasquez. "Tell 'em, Vas."
> 
> He waited for a long, expectant moment, but there was no reply. Sam and Goody exchanged another look. When Josh turned his head, it was to discover Vasquez, watching him dreamily with a tiny, affectionate smile. Josh scowled.
> 
>  _"Vas,"_ he said again, pointed and sharp, face going hot and embarrassed. Vasquez blinked and seemed to almost shake himself awake, not at all concerned with the way the rest of the group was watching them like they were a pair of traveling troubadors singing for their supper.
> 
> "Hm?" Vasquez breathed. "What?"
> 
> Across the table, Red started snickering. Josh sighed and rolled his eyes.
> 
> "Never you mind," he muttered frostily, grabbing for his pint before settling sulkily back into his chair. "Apparently I was wrong."
> 
> While Josh wasn't precisely thrilled at the way the rest of their fellows collapsed into laughter - excepting Billy, who contented himself with a smug, amused smirk - he supposed it was better than being run out of town, and besides, the way that Vasquez's knee pressed up against his under the table, subtle and sweet, made up for a lot.
> 
> \---
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! As always, feel free to come yell at me [on Tumblr!](http://thrillingest.tumblr.com)


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